Albert Gonzalez Farran/Demotix. All rights reserved.
The US
Special Envoy, Donald Booth, will be given a warm welcome when he visits Sudan at
the end of July. Khartoum’s hard-line Islamist regime anticipates the
normalisation of relations with America, and the end of sanctions imposed by
Bill Clinton in 1997, following Sudan’s role in bombing US embassies in Kenya
and Tanzania.
Five
years ago Sudan’s President, Omar Bashir, was indicted for the crime of
genocide against his own citizens in Darfur. However, Washington justifies this
diplomatic thaw by
claiming Sudan is no longer harbouring terrorists.
What
can explain this myopia, when US security services know Sudan has been
facilitating ISIS in Libya, Syria and Iraq, and sundry other terror groups?
Khartoum’s
ruling elite has supported terror for decades, giving
Bin Laden sanctuary, supplying weapons to the rebels currently doing their
utmost to destroy South
Sudan, the Central
African Republic, Syria
and Iraq, and Libya,
not to mention sheltering
Joseph Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army—according to Ugandan intelligence.
In
the face of US inaction, Israel has three times recently bombed arms convoys
going through Sudan, carrying Iranian weapons to Hamas. Khartoum makes Iranian
weapons under licence, and has had military
partnerships with Tehran for years, with whom they share a fundamentalist
ideology. Like Iran, Sudan is committed to spreading Islamism by force. For the
sake of appearances Khartoum is obliging its Saudi creditors by joining its
onslaught on the Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen, but its deep relationship
with Tehran endures.
At
home in Sudan, this bleak ideology finds expression in the ethnic cleansing of
anyone who does not fit the regime’s narrow view of Islamic or Arab identity. An
estimated one and a half million people have been killed in its
non-Arab, non-Muslim southern states (now South Sudan). In Darfur,
South Kordofan and Blue Nile the regime-sponsored bloodshed is back at
devastating levels, albeit in a media vacuum since the regime makes it almost
impossible to
access these vast areas of suffering.
Washington
insiders suggest Sudan cleverly drip-feeds the US morsels of intelligence of
questionable value. The career of a State Department or CIA functionary may
rest on whether or not they followed up every lead, in case it results in a
terror attack on the USA. For instance, Khartoum might hint it has information
about an Al Qaeda bank account, and after six months coaxing from the US, it might
divulge the details of an inactive account with $100 in it. There is no proof
anything useful has ever been revealed by the Sudanese, but in the absence of a
greater appreciation of Sudan’s end-game, and without sufficient knowledge of
Sudan’s track record, staffers ignore leads at their peril.
Moreover,
Khartoum does not represent a direct threat to American life. Evidently it is
irrelevant that the International Criminal Court indicted
Sudan’s President, Field Marshall Omar al-Bashir, for the crime of genocide
five years ago. Threats to Sudan's neighbours, or its long-suffering citizens,
are of no consequence.
US
foreign policy priorities are stopping Iran acquiring nuclear weapons, and
containing ISIS. So why is the US turning a blind eye to Sudan’s links with
ISIS and other terror groups?
President
Obama’s previous special envoy, Princeton Lyman, believed
regime change in Sudan was unnecessary because the Khartoum elite would reform
itself. If so, it would be the first genocidal government in history to do so,
according to the former UN chief in Darfur, Mukesh Kapila. In all other cases,
only force has dislodged leaders who systematically slaughter their people,
Kapila points
out. Lyman’s predecessor, Scott Gration, thought
he could influence Sudan’s leaders by treating them like children, “handing out
cookies or gold stars” for good behaviour.
America
can and should be better than this. US citizens may be unaware of the
democratic governments overthrown in their name or the monstrous regimes America
has propped up. But the citizens of those countries are not so ahistoric, and
in the absence of development and hope, their grievances fester. In the long
run, Americans may pay the price.
There
is another way to avoid putting US boots on the ground. In the case of Sudan,
many provisions of United Nations Security Council resolutions have yet to be
implemented. For instance, the UN voted to apply smart sanctions, targeting the
architects of the genocide in Darfur. We know that when sanctions are personal,
hitting the ruling elite rather than citizens, they have an effect. We should freeze
the finances of Sudan’s bloated rulers, and impose a travel ban, preventing
their frequent shopping trips to Paris, and their visits to London clinics. Although
these measures were approved, they have never been enacted.
America
tells the world it is both exceptional and essential. Yet, US foreign policy in
practice is no more principled than the cynical old Realpolitik of European
diplomacy. Forget the high moral tone about human rights, freedom and
democracy; America is just as calculating as the former colonial
rulers-turned-arms-salesmen in France and Britain.
So
long as American lives are not under immediate threat, it selectively turns a
blind eye to governments that crush dissent at home, ethnically cleanse their
minorities, or support terrorism. Yet, recent history in Afghanistan and the
Middle East teaches us our short-term allies may quickly become our enemies.
Surely we must look more critically at regimes offering us warm words and
smiles, while facilitating the spread of hate ideology and terrorism.